Diablo Cup – Predictions and Results

Yesterday’s story profiled the history and contestants of the Diablo Cup. Today, I give you my pre-Diablo Cup predictions and the actual results from the events.

Predictions 1. State Off a. The State Off is the first mental event in Diablo Cup history. Appropriately, it will test your grade-school knowledge. Those who are fathers of young kids will have a distinct advantage, but I think we’re all up to the task. Not only will this event test your mental abilities, but your dexterity will be called into duty as well because you’ll have to write fast. You have 60 seconds to write down as many states as possible. If you get to all 50, we’ll be impressed. I just did a test run and got through 15 in 30 seconds. That’s not very good, I need to train. Two-letter post office abbreviations (or something obviously equivalent) will suffice. b. Odds: Fin talked a little yang out this earlier, informing us of his state-capitol prowess. I have to admit, I was intimidated. Fin 2-1, BvV 2-1, T 3-1, Meiss 3-1, Brown 3-1, Melba 3-1, Wyck 3-1, Feni 5-1, Bare 6-1, Cushing 7-1

2. Free Throws a. The integrity of the Diablo Cup is at stake. Last year, Wyck, having “outsmarted” the game decided that because he’s no longer able to shoot free throws with any degree of accuracy he’d throw the ball as hard as possible against the portable hoop’s backboard, which, as it turns out, is a deadspot, causing the ball to forcefully strike the backboard and harmlessly fall through the hoop. This, my friends, is a travesty. This aggression will not stand, man. Legit shots only this year. If you bank it in, it has to be an accident. b. Odds: Fin 2-1, Cushing 3-1, BvV 3-1, Melba 3-1, Meiss 7-1, Wyck 8-1, Feni 11-1, T 12-1, Brown 12-1, Bare 15-1

3. Pushups a. This highly controversial event always gets things going. The first year, Melba decided that he’d get up and stretch himself out after about 15 reps. Because time was ticking away as he did this, it really hurt his chances, so we allowed it, but it was weak nevertheless. The second year, my form was called into question, evidently those watching were not able to keep up with my lightning-quick reps and claimed that I wasn’t locking out. That’s like calling my kids ugly, if I had any at the time. This year, we’ll all be on high alert and we can work on a system that will keep the carping to a minimum (Note: which turned out to be the aforementioned quail), but it won’t subside altogether (and would we want it to?), I know this group too well. As always, we’re counting how many pushups you can do in 60 seconds. b. Odds: Finstuen 1-2, BvV 1-2, Cushing 2-1, Brown 2-1, T 7-1, Wyck 9-1, Melba 9-1, Feni 9-1, Meiss 15-1, Bare 100-1

4. Broad Jump a. Back for a second year after the ill-fated vertical jump fiasco of year 1. As many of you may remember. This was the event where Fin very likely choked away a chance at Diablo Cup 2 by falling backward and taking probably 12 inches off of his jump. Will that be in his head when the chips are down? b. Odds: Fin 4-1, Cushing 5-1, Feni 5-1, Meiss 5-1, BvV 6-1, Melba 7-1, Brown 8-1, Wyck 8-1, T 10-1, Bare 15-1

5. Off-Hand Wiffleball Tossa. Ambidexterity is the name of the game here and Melba has us all beat in that regard. Last year we tried to wad up paper for this event and that was, to put it as delicately as it deserves, a terribly stupid idea. People shoved their paper into their mouths in order to compact the wad. Have you men no shame? Aside from that disgusting oral display, the event is dumb because the paper will not hold and there is no uniformity from competitor to competitor. That changes with the almighty wiffleball. b. Odds: Melba 2-1, Fin 3-1, BvV 5-1, Feni 5-1, Cushing 6-1, Bare 7-1, Brown 7-1, Meiss 7-1, Wyck 7-1, T 7-1
6. Anchor Toss a. Quite possibly the event that we’re all looking forward to. Will Feni launch the anchor into the street? We can only hope. Last year’s ill-fated toss-the-rock-from-your-sack-because-Bare-forgot-the-anchor-and-we-decided-not-to-throw-the-rock-over-our-heads was a joke. If Bare forgets the anchor again, and you better not, Bare, then we’ll have to find a big enough rock to heave over our heads. I’m curious to see what kind of challenge Meiss will mount against Feni with his long levers. b. Odds: Feni 1-10, Meiss 5-1, Melba 5-1, Wyck 7-1, T 7-1, Bare 9-1, BvV 9-1, Fin 9-1, Brown 100-1, Cushing 100-1

7. Football Tossa. We’ll be throwing the ball up the hill since we don’t have a yard long enough to contain our cannon arms, sort of like throwing off of a pitcher’s mound except exactly the opposite… and with a football. We won’t be measuring, we’ll just mark our throws. b. Odds: BvV 4-1, Bare 5-1, Feni 7-1, Fin 7-1, Brown 7-1, Melba 8-1, Meiss 9-1, T 9-1, Wyck 10-1, Cushing 15-1

8. Anchor Hold a. Also back for its second year is an event that was a crowd favorite in Diablo Cup 2. There’s just something fun about watching a friend try not to rupture his own spleen while holding a 15 lb anchor straight out for as long as he possibly can. Hand size plays a vital role in this event, and obviously Feni’s got us there, but short levers and old-man strength are key indicators for success as well. This will be a tough one to call. b. Odds: T 2-1, Feni 3-1, Bare 3-1, Brown 3-1, Fin 4-1, Meiss 6-1, BvV 7-1, Wyck 8-1, Cushing 15-1, Melba 20-1,

9. Beer Chuga. Quite possibly the worst event of the Diablo Cup because I’m a threat to toss ’em up every time. This event featured the single biggest upset in the history of the Diablo Cup because Wyck, a non-beer drinker, scorched the field. Can he repeat this year? b. Odds: Wyck 1-2, BvV 2-1, Brown 2-1, Feni 5-1, Fin 9-1, T 10-1, Cushing 12-1, Meiss 20-1, Melba 30-1, Bare 30-1

Final Results

One point.

That’s what it came down to. The Diablo Cup is nothing if not competitive. In ’07 we had a three-way tie (Cushing, Feni, Melba) for first with 24 points. The next competitor (Brown) had 25. In ’08 Brown edged Karl for the cup (32 to 33). This year, ’09, BvV takes the Cup home, narrowly edging Feni (33 to 34). As an aside, the winner of the Diablo Cup literally gets to take it home and display it, proudly, wherever he chooses. It’s that glorious.

I’m proud to say that in ’09 we competed in the most events in the history of the Diablo Cup. One event shy of a decathlon is not bad, considering we did six the first year and eight the next.

Here are the highlights of each event:

1. State Off:Winning mark: 32; Winner: Fin. In a word, embarrassing. It’s amazing how much every one of us choked on this event. Either you froze up during the competition, (I couldn’t get Colorado out of my head) or you didn’t read any of the emails establishing the rules, or just flat out didn’t listen seconds before we started when we were discussing the rules. I guess I know what our fellow teachers and coaches in the room feel like on a day-to-day basis when their kids don’t listen to them. Anyway, congrats to Finstuen for winning the event by a wide margin with a whopping 32 states named. I assume we’ll have a much better showing next year. Maybe we’ll just have a competition seeing how many of our ABCs we can get down in a minute. I like this competition because it seems very easy, but has a huge choke factor. I think it’s here to stay.

2. Free Throws: Winning mark: Five out of ten; Winner: BvV. This mark would have gotten sixth place in DC1, fifth place in DC2, and it wins this year. Unbelievable.

3. Pushups:Winning mark: 68; Winner: BvV. BvV built on his own record by adding five more pushups for a total of 68. That’s a lot. The addition of the quail was a nice touch and although there were some catcalls from the peanut gallery, I think this was the cleanest this event has looked in three years.

4. Off-Hand Wiffleball Toss:Wining mark: 74’11; Winner: Fin. A new event that took the place of the wadded-up paper toss. I liked the uniformity of this competition, even if the wind played a role. I thought that Frisch’s ambidexterity would win out here, but Finstuen had the second-best odds of winning and that proved to be the case.

5. Broad Jump:Winning mark: 8’0; Winner: Cushing. Since Karl didn’t participate this year, he left the door open for a competitor to sneak in. I ended up beating Feni by one inch, and if he had reached just a little further, he would have tied BvV for the Cup and we would have had to think of a tie-breaker. Like I said, inches, gentlemen. Inches. This brings up a good point though, we need to figure out a good tiebreaker system since we don’t have one right now.

6. Anchor Toss: Winning mark: 49 feet 3 inches (Diablo Cup Record, old record 49 feet); Winner: Feni. Always a fun event. Feni surpassed his own record by three inches, but the field is threatening to catch up to him. Feni is now just nine feet, five inches ahead of Melba. Of course, that’s a long ways. It’s more likely that Feni tosses it over 50 feet before anyone else gets to 40.

7. Football Toss: Winning mark, no measurement; Winner: Wyck. Predicting that T had slightly better odds than Wyck to win this event shows my ignorance of T’s football-throwing abilities. I’m not sure what I was thinking on that one. But Wyck should thank me since he used his anger to propel him to victory in this event (just as he channeled his rancor toward the beer chug to victory). You’re welcome, Wyck.

8. Anchor Hold:Winning mark: 1 minute 25 seconds (Diablo Cup Record, old record 1 minute 2.6 seconds); Winner: Feni. I think we’ve finally got this one nailed down. Holding the anchor is much better than palming a heavy rock. I really thought that T would take this one home, but the big paw of Feni took it down. BvV’s old-man strength nearly carried the day as well, falling only four seconds short of Feni, but when it goes, it goes.

9. Beer Chug:Winning mark: 7.85 seconds (Diablo Cup Record, old record 8.6 seconds); Winner: Feni. I hate this event. I was *this* close to puking and felt like my throat was burning about 10 seconds in. The carbonation is a killer. I don’t know how you guys do it. After T’s superhuman shotgun display on Friday night, I thought that he’d run away with this thing, but it looked like the beer was coming out too quickly and then it foamed up, causing an unfortunate explosion on his face. Feni’s 7.85 was remarkable and was enough to earn him first place, but the five point whatever afterwards was preposterous. Are we going to see a sub-five next year?

If Diablo Cup 4 is anything like the previous iterations, it will come down to the wire. Next year I’m bringing a laptop to the competition so that I don’t have to do all of the calculations by hand and we can have real-time scoring updates.

If anyone has any suggestions for Diablo Cup events, I’ll gladly take them.